AFC South Breakdown + HYPE Train!

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then this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs. Hey, Fook, Glenn. Before we start today's show, I want to make sure everyone out there is prepared for your fantasy football draft by getting the ultimate draft kit at ultimate draft kit.com, all the cheat sheets you need, all the coaching changes you want to know about everything to catch you up for this year's fantasy football is found in the ultimate draft kit at ultimate draft kit.com.

This is D.D. Westbrook here with the Jacksonville Jaguars, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Coming to you from Draft.com Studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Once again. There you go. Whoa. Hey, Mike. You coward bailing out on that already? No.

No, no, no. That's never been in every show thing. Just for 400 in a row? No, no, no. Go back. Jason's face says he agrees with me. I think I agree with Mike here, but I'm also an idiot. Hey. Ah, welcome in. Welcome to the show. Hit the music again. Tuesday, August 7, 2018. AFC South on the show today, a D.D. Westbrook interview to end the show.

and we'll be climbing in to the epic hype train. Oh, are we? Yes, we are. Got our tickets? Yeah, we got our tickets to the hype train. We're going to have to squeeze in. Got our, yeah, we're going to have to get real snug in that hype train. It's really just one magical dwarf per car, but we're going to fit three size men in it. It's a very small train with a very small train whistle.

And we'll be talking about all of the hype that's happening during preseason, all the coach speak, all of the players destined to become Hall of Famers based on their preseason practice performances. There's a lot of them. Dion Kane Hall of Fame. First balance. That sounds so close to Dean Kane. Oh, Superman. TV Superman. Yeah. Who was the lowest lane on that show? Terry Hatcher? Terry Hatcher. And then she turned into a desperate housewife.

Uh, as, as one, as they all, as one seems to come at me with my cherry hatcher knowledge, bro. From Seinfeld fame. They're real. Uh, and they're spectacular. Okay, we've gone, uh, gotten off to a great start. We've taken the hype train off the rails. Andy Mike and Jason, the fancy footballers welcome you into another episode of the show. We're here five days a week. And the objective of this podcast is to get you prepared and ready.

to dominate in 2018 to win your league. We take a holistic approach to fantasy football, which means knowing not only, you know, not only digging into the statistics and the analytics and giving you accurate rankings, but also how to evaluate trades, how to evaluate the waiver wire, how to play against your teammates. Remind you that we're playing a game and the game is supposed to be fun. That too.

How to have a great league, how to be a great commissioner, those type of things. So I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're listening. I'm glad you're subscribed. Find us on Twitter at the FF Ballers on Instagram. We are Instagram.com slash fantasy footballers. And Jason mentioned it to start the show, Ultimate DraftKit.com, the one-stop shop to get you ready for your draft, which are, they're coming soon. They're coming quick. All right.

Oh, I also want to remind you, if you want to practice, okay, you want to practice drafting. Which is a super valuable thing to do this time of year. I've always said that if you're not doing mock drafts in preparation before the season, then you are leaving out one of the most valuable assets to you. And you could do that at draft.com. Yeah, and we'll give you a grade.

We'll give you a grade that are based off of our rankings. So you'll get a grade from each of us. It's pretty fun. It's free. Draftout the fancy footballers.com. Now, Mike, I see a note here, or is this from Brooks? That's a Brooks note. Yeah, I just remember that. I thought we should bring it up. Mike, what happened yesterday? So, I mean, you're a man of the ink. Yes. So we're combing through the listener league entries. Thank you so much to everyone. Over 700. By the way.

I should say thank you and curse you for making the decision so hard because the entries this year brought it. One fella in particular decided to bring it forever. Yeah. Forever. Because the man put the shield. He put the fantasy footballer's logo on his forearm in the form of a tattoo.

Our first tattoo. Well, he was super tatted up, right? His whole honor. No. Oh, no. So this is his only visible tattoo? It's as far as I know. So congratulations, sir. You're in the league. You're in the league. It's a, it's a weird thing to see. Now, I think it's an honor and still strange at the same time. This was not a small logo. Nope. This was a very large logo on his forearm. We didn't believe it at first, but then he had the video to prove it.

Do we need to give the disclaimer now that, like, next year, if we get, like, 20 tattoo emails, we can't guarantee you all a spot. So you tattoo yourself with our logo at your own peril. That's one of the... I would just recommend taking it up a notch. Just, look, the forearm tattoo? A forehead will get you in. No, don't do that. Now, Mike, you trolled him briefly, did you not? Oh, yeah, I let him know we were changing our logo. Not true.

Apparently we're not allowed to now. All right. Before we get into some news and notes and the AFC South breakdown, I'm really excited to talk about a ton of the players in the AFC South. But before we do that, our quick question takes the form of the height train. Here it comes, guys. Raise your feet. Let's help fantasy owners dig through the muck and figure out a tangible fantasy.

news tidbit from all of the hype train. So I'm going to bring some hype your way. You guys tell me whether you buy it or whether you just let it, you know, it's just rolling off your back. I'm sitting high above the mucky muck here. Anthony Lynn, head coach for the Chargers, raved about Melvin Gordon's receiving ability, says he's a better receiver than I ever thought he was. Yeah, and honestly, I'm going to give this a medium hype because Melvin Gordon was.

Heavily involved in the passing game. That's the part that takes Melvin Gordon's game to the next level for fantasy football. 83 targets, 58 receptions last season is a ton. And he's just now figuring out that he catches. Anthony, Anthony, you were the coach last year. You should have noticed this by now. You called a lot of passes to him for a guy who you didn't know was a good receiver. Let's talk about the Colts.

Starting with this one, I figured it would come up at some point. Jim Mersey said he could see Marlon Mack approaching 1,500 yards. Yeah. So here's where. Consider the source. That's exactly what I was going to say. The source is what matters so much on when we're looking at hype, offseason news.

Who's saying it? Is this a beat reporter that is often known to both be positive and negative about a team? Is this one of those reporters that basically, for all intents of purposes, works for the team, has a connection with them, and everything's always rosy. Is this a coach? Is this the player himself? Or is it Jim Erse? He's on his own place. He, the hype around Andrew Luck last season was all positive from Jim Eersay.

So, yeah, you cannot. Look, I like Marlon Mack. I definitely believe that he is the best running back on that roster. That is my firm stance. I do not think he will approach 1,500 yards, and I take this news as just fluff. I'll take the under. I'll take the under as well. Peter King reported yesterday that sixth round wide receiver Dionne Kane has been the big star of Colts training camp. And then this morning, Colts head coach Frank Reich said that,

T.Y. Hilton and Ryan Grant, free agent acquisition, the wide receiver that was almost signed by Buffalo and ended up signed by the Colts. Baltimore. Did I just say Buffalo? You said Baltimore. Baltimore, yeah. He said that they have really separated themselves from the other wide receivers. Yeah, I'll listen to the coach here. Yeah, and Ryan Grant, they invested money in him. Not Baltimore money, but money. And Ryan Grant is a capable whiteout. I do think he has some value. I know that we've...

We've looked at the historical data on Andrew Luck and the wide receiver too, but it's not a monstrous sample size in his career with great players. Especially with T.Y. Hilton being a big play guy, I think Ryan Grant has an opportunity. He'd be somebody I'd be willing to stream this year if Andrew Luck is healthy. It's certainly possible. The problem for Ryan Grant is that Andrew Luck can get things going with Jack Doyle and they brought in.

pass-catching tight end, Eric Ebron into the team, that is trouble. And you have 1,500 yard in Marlon Mack who could catch the ball as well. There's so many yards to go around, 7,000, 8,000 yards receiving, I'm sure. All right, so you'd take Ryan Grant over Dionne. Yes, 100%. Deon Cain is a darling of draft Twitter over the offseason. I think he is a capable and good player.

But he's still a six-round pick. He's got a long way to go. Would you take Ryan Grant or Eric Ebron as a flex option? Probably Eric Ebron. Flex, yeah, I think Eric Ebron as well. All right. What about this news? Bears running backs coach, Charles London, says that Jordan Howard catches two to three hundred balls a day after practice, plus during special teams. I'll take the under. The bears are very, very...

They're making a concerted effort to hype up Jordan Howard's ability to catch the ball. This is great news. This is the news you look for. This is a coach not saying, I think he's been good. He's just saying after practice, he has been catching two to three hundred balls. He's getting the catching machine, and we've seen the videos of it where he's just catching a ball, ball, ball, catch, catch. They changed his hand position in catching. So is he going to be good at it? All behind the back catches. Not necessarily.

But if you want to get good at something, I love hearing that a player is working this hard on the clear hole in his game. I like that. Shack never took two to 300 free throws at the end of practice. I know that. Thank you. I was just going to say, I like that he's working on it. Strike that. I love that he's working on it. But catching from the machine is so different than running a route.

in real life knowing that someone's bearing down on you, going to blow you up. You know, you know this, you know this. It's just a mental hurdle. With all the worst. It's the same for Shaq. It's a perfect example. Every coach said in practice, they would watch Shaq drain free throw after free throw, but when the lights came on, he just couldn't do it. Yeah, and without a doubt.